Head pleased with Williams' Spanish test
31 Mar 2003

BMW Williams made genuine progress during last week's test at Barcelona, where Ralf Schumacher set the fastest time overall of 1m 15.359s on Thursday.

In less clement conditions the German was also fastest on Friday, in 1m 17.590s after initial rain had cleared up. That day Marc Gene lapped in 1m 18.731s, having earlier in the week been as quick as Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya.

The team has been preparing a new undertray and bodywork since Melbourne, but technical director Patrick Head said: "What has really made a difference is a new front wing, which seems to work quite well. And for the first time we were running the new rear suspension that was always intended for the car, in place of the interim system we have had to use since the FW25 was launched.

"We took a lot of new aero parts to Spain and I'd say that we are very pleased with the result. I think that Brazil should suit our car, and hopefully we will have a less bitty race than we had in Malaysia."

On Friday David Coulthard lapped in 1m 18.223s for McLaren, followed by Olivier Panis on 1m 18.674s for Toyota, then Gene and Michael Schumacher on a misleading 1m 19.020s.

All of the teams worked on tyre programmes for the Brazilian Grand Prix this weekend.

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